Don’t stump for the Sanitary
Fund—Billy Clagett says he certainly will not. If I have been so
unlucky as to rob you of some of your [popoularity ]by that unfortunate item, I claim at your hands that you neither increase
nor diminish it by so fruitless a proceeding as making speeches for the Fund. I
am mighty sick of that fund—it has caused me all my d—d
troubles—& I shall leave the Territory when your first
speech is announced, & leave it for good.1

I see by the Union of this morning, that those ladies have
seduced from me what I consider was a sufficient apology, under
coming from a man open to a challenge from three persons, & already
awaiting the issue of such a message to another2—they got out of me what no man would
ever have got, & then—well, they are ladies, &
I shall not speak harshly of them.3 Now although the Union folks have kept quiet this morning, (much against
my expectations,) I still have a quarrel or two on hand—so that this
flour sack business may rest, as far as Carson is concerned. I shall take no
notice of it at all, except to mash Mr Laird over the head with my
revolver for publishing it [to if ]I meet him to-day—otherwise, I do nothing. I consider that I
have triumphed over those ladies at last, & I am quits with them. But
when I forgive the injury—or forget it—may or
fail to set up a score against it, as opportunity offers—may I be
able to console myself for it with the consciousness that I have become a
marvellously better man. At I have no intention of hunting for the puppy, Laird, Mollie, but he had better let me have 24
hours unmolested, to get cool in.

We await the result of

But for Heaven’s sake give me at least the
[q peace ]& quiet it will afford me to know that no stumping is to be
done for the unlucky Sanitary Fund.

1
Orion Clemens had been appointed president of the Ormsby County sanitary
committee on 14 April. In this capacity he was expected to help organize
“a thorough Territorial Sanitary Commission through every
city and town in the Territory” (“The Union
Territorial Convention—Concluded,” Virginia City
Union, 16 Apr 64, 2).

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2
Three of these adversaries were James L. Laird and J. W. Wilmington, of
the Union, and William K. Cutler, husband of the
president of the Sanitary Ball committee (see 28 May 64 to Cutler). As
the next letter indicates, Clemens was also anticipating challenges from
the husbands of the other committee members. Years
later—alluding to this sanitary-fund imbroglio but mistakenly
placing it during his March–April 1864 tenure as Enterprise chief editor—Clemens
claimed, “When I laid down my editorial pen I had four
horse-whippings and two duels owing to me” (AD, 19 Jan 1906, CU-MARK, in MTA, 1:360).

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3
Clemens was tempted to speak harshly of the Carson City women because
their complaint about his “miscegenation society”
remarks appeared in the 25 May Virginia City Union, despite his apology in the Enterprise of the twenty-fourth. In belatedly airing the
women’s protest, the Union had to
adopt the lame pretext that Clemens’s
“individual” apology was insufficient atonement
for the Enterprise’s offense in
printing his “scurrilous item.” The awkwardness of
this attempt to prolong the dispute evidently helped Clemens feel, as he
goes on to tell Orion here, that he had “triumphed over those
ladies at last.”

Copy-text:MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley (CU-MARK). The MS consists of a folder of
blue-lined off-white laid paper, 7¾ by 9¾ inches (19.7 by
24.8 cm), blind embossed in the upper left corner with the word
‘bancroft’ in a decorative lozenge. The folder is
inscribed on the first three pages in black ink, now faded to brown. The MS is
reproduced in Photographs
and Manuscript Facsimiles.

Provenance:probably Moffett Collection; see p. 462. On the last page of the MS folder
someone, probably Orion, wrote in pencil: ‘For Mr &
Mrs Sam’l L. Clemens, Care of Mrs Crane Elmira n y’.
This address could have been written in almost any year during the period
from 1871 to 1897, when the Clemenses spent many summers at Susan
Crane’s Elmira home. Orion Clemens died on 11 December 1897. Next
to the address Paine wrote in pencil ‘1864’. Also on
the last page, a penciled note that may have been in Paine’s hand
has been erased: ‘These letters are not to be published or used
in any way. They are to be destroyed.’ At the top of the first MS
page Paine wrote in pencil ‘May ’64’ and
‘[May 25? 1864]’.